The ancient Olympic Games, known to us from ancient literature and art and from modern archaeology, were the oldest and most prestigious athletic competition of antiquity. The greatest writer of victory odes for athletes, Pindar (518–438 B.C.E.) wrote that Olympia is to other games as the sun is to the stars; there is no more glorious “place of festival” than Olympia.However they have inspired the modern Olympics, the ancient games must be seen in their own ancient Greek cultural context. Despite common misperceptions, the ancient Olympics differed from their modern counterpart in organization, events, and ideology. The ancient Olympics are important in their own right, not merely as an anachronistic model or moral touchstone for the modern Games.

With sacred rituals and wreaths of olive leaves as prizes, the ancient Olympic Games were part of a great religious festival (a regular gathering for worship and celebration) in honor of Zeus, the Greeks’ chief god, held every four years in late summer at the same site, the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia. The festival was crucial in providing a regular, hallowed context for games, helping the games last for well over a thousand years as the most enduring of Greek institutions. Until unified by Macedon in 338 B.C.E., ancient Greece was not a single nation politically but rather a host of small, fiercely independent city-states, but the Greeks recognized their language, their mythology, and their Panhellenic (all-Greek) Olympics as vital to their ethnicity, their Greekness. At the games of Zeus Greeks assembled to venerate their gods, to enjoy elite competition, and to appreciate their common culture. The Olympics even provided the classical Greeks with a shared chronology, for happenings were dated by reference to years of the games. Each set of games was named after the winner in the men’s sprint race, and an “Olympiad”was one set of games or the interval between the close of one games and the start of the next.

History

Earlier cultures had sports (physical rituals, recreations, competitions), but the Greeks remain distinctive for their institutionalization of athletics (public, intensely competitive physical contests) with regular festivals and prizes.The earliest Greeks, the militaristic Mycenaeans of the Bronze Age, seem to have held athletic contests, possibly with valuable prizes, as part of funeral practices in the second millennium B.C.E. Homer offers the earliest and greatest account of Greek athletics in the funeral games of Patroklos in Book 23 of the Iliad. Probably composed or compiled in the 8^th century B.C.E., Homer’s poems contain no clear reference to Olympic Games. This and a host of conflicting and suspect ancient traditions make the origins of the Olympics uncertain. The later grandeur of the Games understandably inflated notions of their antiquity and emergence. Literary and speculative sources say that Herakles founded the games to honor Zeus or that they were established by the legendary King Pelops from Asia Minor, who won a chariot race against the local king, Oinomaos of Pisa. Traditions also speak of a refounding or reorganization of the Games during the Greek Dark Age (around the 9^th century B.C.E.). Archaeology suggests that major games were not an original part of early festivals at Olympia. By various interpretations the earliest contests at Olympia were held as sacred rituals, funeral games, offerings to gods, initiations, or reenactments of myths or heroic labors. Olympia was the site of a local and rustic Zeus cult by the 10^th century B.C.E., and games may simply have emerged gradually and naturally. Historically, the traditional date of 776 refers not to the first Games but to the first attested Olympic victor,Koroibos of Elis, victor in the stadion, a sprint of around 200 meters (218 yards), the only event in the earliest Games. Although the reliability of the earliest entries in the Olympic Victor List compiled by later ancient authors has been challenged, the date of 776 is probably still acceptable if referring to a rather limited and localized contest. The growing number and expense of dedications (gifts to the gods) of metal objects (statuettes and vessels) suggest increased activity in the 8^th century, especially around 725–700. Recent archaeology of the site and of wells dug near the stadium area suggests that major games developed around 700 and were expanded in 680 with the addition of equestrian events. In the Archaic Age (roughly 750–500 B.C.E.) patronage by city states and tyrants (autocratic leaders), such as Pheidon of Argos, enhanced the games. When colonization spread Greeks all over the Mediterranean basin, the colonies cherished the games as ties to the motherland. The 6^th century saw a great expansion and spread of Greek athletic festivals, and by the early 5^th century Olympia emerged as the pinnacle of a circuit (the Periodos) of four great Panhellenic crown games.Modeled on Olympia, Pindar’s “mother of contests,” with wreath prizes and competitions open to all Greeks, the other games, at Delphi, Isthmia, and Nemea,were held in a set sequence, with at least one festival each year leading up to the Olympics as the finale. In the Classical Era (roughly 500–323 B.C.E.) the Greeks reveled in their athleticism and Olympia’s facilities were expanded (see below).

In the 4^th century and the Hellenistic Era (323–31 B.C.E.) the Macedonian kings, beginning with Philip II and Alexander the Great, patronized but also politicized Olympia. The financial needs of the early Games had been modest,and,for religious reasons,the Games never had admission fees; but the later, more elaborate facilities and Games depended on benefactions and contributions.

After the Roman general Sulla pillaged the site in 85 B.C.E., the Greeks honored Herod of Judea as president of the Games in 12 B.C.E. for his financial help. The Games adjusted to the wider imperial circumstances of the Roman Empire as some emperors were supportive, but Nero in 67 B.C.E. made a travesty of one inappropriately delayed set of Games by collecting fraudulent victories in irregular musical contests and a 10-horse chariot race held for his benefit. The Games were disrupted by the invasion of the Germanic Herulians in 267 B.C.E. but continued into the Late Roman Empire. The Games endured and perished as part of a pagan festival: in 393 C.E. the Christian emperor Theodosius I ordered the closing of pagan cults and centers, and in 462 Theodosius II ordered the destruction of all pagan temples, but the Games continued until around 500 C.E.

Site and Facilities

The permanent home of the ancient Olympics was an isolated religious sanctuary on the Alpheios River in the territory of the state of Elis in southwestern Greece. Not a city, it lay about 58 kilometers (36 miles) from the city of Elis. Damaged by earthquakes, floods, and humans in antiquity and then abandoned and silted over for centuries, the site was discovered in the 18^th century and later systematically excavated by German teams from 1875 on.Archaeology has revealed the history of the site, and the author Pausanias, who visited Olympia around 160–170 C.E., left a detailed and accurate account of what he saw. The area of the earliest constructions and the enduring center of the site was the Altis or sacred precinct of Zeus, marked by a low wall. Early simple cultic arrangements included openair altars, notably the great altar of Zeus, shrines, and places for dedications among the sacred grove of trees. At Olympia the gods came first, then the athletes, and, last but not least, the spectators.

From the 7^th century B.C.E. on, the sanctuary became embellished with architectural and artistic marvels. After the construction of the archaic Doric Temple of Hera, wife of Zeus, around 625, treasuries (small temples and storehouses) were built around 600 by city-states, especially colonies. The famous Doric Temple of Zeus (ca. 470–456) came to house a colossal statue of Zeus (ca. 430) by Phidias, hailed as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.There were also facilities for priests and officials (Prytaneion, Bouleuterion), other shrines and temples (Metröon, Shrine of Pelops), and various stoas (covered colonnades). The Philippeion was added in the later 4^th century B.C.E. as a shrine for heroized Macedonian kings. The arrangements of the Altis were largely set by the late 4^th century, but the site acquired further benefactions, renovations, and political monuments. Over time the site became cluttered with dedications (even of weapons and war trophies) and statues—Pausanias mentions some 200.

Athletic facilities grew slowly around the periphery of the Altis. Except for equestrian events, contests took place in the stadium, but even in its later phases this most venerated venue of Greek sport was surprisingly modest to modern minds. One theory places one end of the early racecourse at an altar within the Altis, but the exact location of the earliest stadium remains uncertain. Nearby wells dug about 700 and a retaining wall (of around 550) for an low embankment on the south indicate an archaic stadium extending from the eastern edge of the Altis. A stadium built around 500, perhaps slightly further east, had a higher south embankment. Reflecting adjustments to the growth of the Games rather than a dramatic secularization of athletics, the next stadium was shifted 12 meters to the north and 75 meters further east around 475–450. This stadium had embankments on the south, north, and west, a capacity of around 40,000, and a track about 212 by 28.5 meters with start lines (in narrow slabs of stone) 192.28 meters apart. In the mid-4^th century B.C.E. the stadium was further closed off from the sanctuary by the Stoa of Echo.The vaulted ceremonial entrance, the Krypte, formerly seen as a later addition of the 2^nd century, may be from the later 4^th century.The Olympic stadium was in use, with Hellenistic and Roman renovations, for several centuries but it had no assigned and no stone seating, except for a small area for officials, and water was provided only by small channels at the edge of the track. Similarly, there were no formal accommodations for spectators at Olympia; southwest of the Altis the Leonidaion of the 4^th century B.C.E. was a guest house for dignitaries only.

Lying to the south of the stadium, the Hippodrome, the racecourse for horses and chariots, is unexcavated, but Pausanias says the track was 2 stades or 400 meters long with two turning posts and elaborate starting gates added in the mid-5^th century. The earliest training areas at Olympia were so simple as to have left no remains except some bathing facilities of the 5^th century to the northwest of the Altis. In this area the Palaestra, a small square colonnaded area specifically for practicing combat events, was built in the 3^rd century B.C.E. Nearby was the Gymnasium, whose literal meaning is “a place where people are nude,” but which functionally was a site for practicing track and field events.Added in the 2^nd century B.C.E., this was a large rectangular facility with an open central court, running tracks, stoas on each side, and a monumental entrance.

Operation and Administration

Lacking our penchant for records and statistics, the administration of the ancient Games was, by our standards, very limited and authoritarian. The classical Games were supervised by highly revered officials (10 by the mid-4^th century) called the “judges of the Greeks,” the Hellanodikai, nobles chosen from the state of Elis who took an oath to be fair.Assisted by priests, whip-bearers, and crowd monitors, as referees and censors they controlled the preparations and decorum of athletes,decisions of victory, and prize giving.Their orders and judgments were absolute and irrevocable. Conspicuous for their purple robes and the forked sticks they carried, the judges could expel, fine, or scourge athletes for cheating or lying. Inscriptions show that even as early as the 6^th century they had to enforce rules against foul play in wrestling.Bribery and fraud among athletes was forbidden, but it took place, for Greek athletes were as human as modern ones. Beginning in 388 B.C.E., several bronze statues of Zeus, the Zanes, paid for by fines imposed on athletes, flanked the route to the stadium and bore inscriptions warning against corruption.

Before each Games, heralds from Elis spread throughout Greece announcing the upcoming Games, inviting athletes, spectators, and missions of gift-bearing envoys from Greek states, and proclaiming a sacred truce. Initially of one and later three months’ duration, the truce forbade the entry of armies into Elean territory and ordered safe passage through any state for all travelers to and from the Games, in effect as religious pilgrims. The orator Lysias said the Games were founded to promote Panhellenic friendship, but the truce has been romanticized. It did not stop wars:

Sparta was fined for attacking Elean territory in 420, and Arcadians even invaded the sanctuary in 364.

Program of Events

For 50 years after 776 the earliest games had only the stadion but thereafter the program expanded before settling down to a fairly stable list of events by the late 6^th century. Events were introduced as follows: 724, diaulos (double race of 400 meters down and back); 720, dolichos (long race of 20–24 lengths); 708, pentathlon and wrestling; 688, boxing; 680, tethrippon (four-horse chariot race of 12 laps); 648, pankration (all-in wrestling) and keles (horseback race of 6 laps); 632, boys’ stadion and wrestling; 628, boys’ pentathlon (discontinued thereafter); 616, boys’ boxing; 520, hoplitodromos (race in armor, down and back); 500, apene (mule cart race); 496, kalpe or anabates (race for mares and dismounting riders; the kalpe and apene were dropped in 444); 408, synoris (two-horse chariot race of 8 laps); 396, contests for heralds and trumpeters; 384, four-colt chariot race; 268, two-colt chariot race; 256, races for colts; 200, boys’ pankration.

The exact sequence of activities remains uncertain, but clearly by the 5^th century athletic contests and religious rituals were intermingled over a five-day festival. Probably the first day saw the oath ceremony, boys’ events,prayers and sacrifices; day two saw a procession of competitors and contests in the equestrian events, then the pentathlon; day three (that of the full moon) was central with a procession of judges, ambassadors, athletes, the main sacrifice (of 100 oxen) to Zeus, footraces, and a public feast; day four was wholly athletic with combat events and the race in armor (the hoplitodromos); day five saw the procession and crowning of victors, feasting, and celebrations.With related activities, including recitations, merchandising (for example, the selling of food and of artisanal wares such as votive figures) and personal and diplomatic partying and posturing, the festival took on the air of a medieval fair or a modern sporting spectacle, but it was never completely secularized.

Dramatically described by Homer and lavishly depicted in vase paintings, Greek athletic events demanded speed, strength, and stamina. The oldest and simplest contests, the footraces began with an auditory start as athletes stood upright with their toes in grooves in the stone starting sill. Judges assigned lanes by lot and flogged any false starters.On a straight track, longer races required that athletes run down and back, turning around wooden posts. Of events with military overtones, the hoplite race run with helmets and shields is the most obvious. The pentathlon consisted of five contests: a jump, the discus, the javelin, a run, and wrestling. The method of scoring remains debated but there was no complicated system of points. Combat sports were called “heavy” contests because, without weight classes, rounds, or time limits, heavier athletes dominated. In these events in uneven fields an athlete might be allotted a bye and sit out as an ephedros (the term for those waiting for a turn to compete), gaining an advantage in the next round. Fouls or indications of lethargy were met with blows of the judge’s stick. Wrestlers used an array of sophisticated holds and throws, and matches were decided by three of five falls (touching an opponent’s back or shoulders to the ground, tying him up in a confining hold, or stretching him prone) or by submission. Boxers bound their hands with leather thongs, and victories were achieved when an opponent was knocked out or submitted. The pankration or “all powerful” combat was a brutal free-for-all combining boxing and wrestling. Sometimes wearing light boxing thongs, pankratiasts could punch, kick, and choke; only biting and gouging were forbidden.Bouts continued until one athlete gave up or was incapacitated. A thrice-victorious mid-4^th-century pankratiast, Sostratos of Sikyon, was famous for breaking the fingers of opponents.

There are stories of deaths and even a posthumous victory: before expiring in a stranglehold, Arrhachion of Phigaleia is said to have dislocated his opponent’s ankle, forcing him to submit to a dead but victorious man in 564 B.C.E. Athletes who unintentionally killed opponents had legal immunity.

The equestrian events were the most spectacular, for keeping horses in poor and rocky Greece was a proverbial sign of wealth. The owners, not the drivers, were declared the victors in these contests.Young jockeys rode horses bareback, and chariot races were even more hazardous as large fields of 40 or more entries of light, two-wheeled,wooden chariots raced over 12 laps and made sharp hairpin turns. Owners did not have to drive their own teams and usually hired drivers, a circumstance allowing Alkibiades of Athens to enter 7 teams in 416. Owners did not even need to be present, thus allowing even female victors.Kyniska, daughter of a Spartan king,won the tethrippon in 396 and 392 B.C.E.

Athletes

At their best, ancient Olympians showed dedication to their gods, families, and countries,performing magnificently while upholding ideals of endurance, humility, and moderation. Admittedly, Greek athletes were obsessed with individual first-place victory. Homer claimed there was “no greater glory” than that won by hands and feet, and Pindar said athletic victory was “the grandest height to which mortals can aspire,” as close to immortality as a Greek could come. Participation was not enough: Pindar writes of embarrassed losers sneaking home.An uncontested victory when an athlete faced no challengers was rare, and most victories were hard ones, long sought and much celebrated. Ancient Olympians represented many Greek states but only one Greek culture. Competitors had to be free (non-slave), male Greeks (non-“barbarians,” although Romans were permitted later) not otherwise excluded by grave religious sin or Olympic sanctions. Early Games drew locally and Sparta dominated,but with the age of colonization athletes came from the Black Sea to North Africa. Southern Italy and Sicily became prominent, as did Alexandria later in the Hellenistic Era.Athletes usually represented their native states but they could declare themselves as representatives of other states. The runner Astylos won races for Kroton in southern Italy in 488 and again in 484, but in 480 he won for Syracuse in Sicily, supposedly to honor his friend, Hieron, tyrant of Syracuse. Athletes swore a solemn oath that they would abide by the rules and that they had been in continuous training for the previous 10 months. Subject to the judges’ estimation of their physical maturity, athletes were eligible for boys’ events from age 12 on but were excluded at 18 or perhaps 19. All athletes (and trainers) in the stadium, and jockeys but not charioteers in the hippodrome,competed nude. Ancient explanations about safety or advantages for speed aside, nudity was of cultic rather than practical origin. Except for one priestess of Demeter, women were barred from Olympia during the Games, ostensibly on pain of death, although one woman from a famous athletic family discovered on site was spared. At separate times,however, the site housed contests for females in the quadrennial Heraia, the Games of Hera. Famous athletes were glorified even to the point of cultic hero worship, and ancient Olympians inspired many tall tales. The famous Milo of Kroton had six Olympic wins (boys’ wrestling in 536, then 5 men’s by 516) among his 31 in the Periodos, the circuit of Panhellenic crown games, over a career of at least 24 years. He is said to have eaten 18 kilograms (40 pounds) of meat and bread and 7.5 liters (8 quarts) of wine at one setting, and to have carried, killed, and then consumed a four-year-old bull. Supposedly he could hold a pomegranate in his fist and not bruise it even as others tried to pry it from his hand, and he could burst a cord tied about his forehead merely by the strength of his veins when he held his breath. Theagenes of Thasos, who won the pankration (476) and boxing (480) at Olympia, claimed some 1,400 wins in his long and much-traveled career.

Scholars debate the historical continuity or changes in the social origins of the ancient Olympians. Traditional views of an early golden age of pure, noble competitors have been challenged. Specialized training, professional coaching, excesses, and profit came early. Greeks had neither the concept nor a word for amateurism in the elitist 19^th-century sense of banning material profit from sport.From the start, athletes of all classes accepted material as well as symbolic prizes and rewards. On site at Olympia victors won only a wreath of olive leaves, an intrinsically priceless gift picked from Zeus’s sacred trees, along with ceremonial decorations and honors (fillets of wool, sprigs of vegetation, the herald’s proclamation, and the right to establish a statue in the Altis). On his homecoming, however, a victor received extrinsic benefits, such as cash bonuses, free meals, and honorary seats at theaters and public gatherings for life. By the 6^th century Athens gave its Olympic victors monetary rewards of 500 drachmas (about $340,000).

Beyond the Periodos many games with valuable material prizes (such as money, cloaks, olive oil) were available, and seeing prizes as gifts rather than wages, athletes competed wherever they wanted.The door was open for middle-class and even poor athletes,but those with family resources still had advantages for the required time, travel, and training under instruction. Financial subsidization of athletes is attested from around 300 B.C.E. on, but the dramatic record of archaic Kroton, whose runners won over 40 percent of the victories in the Olympic stadion from 588 to 484,may have involved civic intervention. By Hellenistic times at the latest, Greek athletics knew most aspects of modern professionalism; guilds of professional athletes existed from about 50 B.C.E. and were later subsidized by Roman emperors.

Like their modern counterparts, critics of ancient athletics found material for satire but had no effect. The 6^th-century philosopher Xenophanes said that honors and rewards should go to intellectuals rather than athletes, and a fragment of Euripides’ lost Autolykos from around 420 lampooned athletes, “the worst of the thousand ills of Greece,” as musclebound gluttons, uncouth, useless, and parasitical members of the community. Although he wished otherwise, Plato admitted that most Greeks saw the life of Olympic victors as the happiest.